leaving early today

nospam@example.com (ben) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 11:45:12 -0400

Every so often I get in a particular mood:

July 30, 2009

[REDACTED], [REDACTED], The Distinguished Gentlemen of the [REDACTED] Mailing List
US Naval Research Laboratory
4555 Overlook Ave., SW
Washington, DC 20375

To whom it may concern:

I'm planning to leave around 3 today.

I guess that is all.

It just seemed like I needed to write some more since I
included a salutation in the email. Maybe I should take it
out and then remove all of this extraneous text. Or maybe I
should go all the way to the other extreme and include
addresses & dates for a true formal letter like I learned in
high school business class.

It's been a long time since I've done a true formal letter
format, so I guess I'll go that way. I should probably
update the conversational, string-of-thought style of the
text as well. I guess I won't go that far, though. Take
that, high school!

Well, I guess I'll go ahead and update the salutation. It
used to say 'Hello All.' On a side note, does anyone else
loathe putting punctuation marks inside of quotes? I really
think that "'Hello All'." would look much better. Stupid
english! Also, please note that I have left the requisite
four lines after my 'Complimentary Close'. See? Doesn't that
look better? On another side note, I didn't know what to
call the 'Complimentary Close', so I did some Googling and
found a page on formal business letter formats.

Sincerely,

Benjamin N Rasmussen
Linux Admin of No Note
US Naval Research Laboratory
4555 Overlook Ave., SW
Washington, DC 20375

Also, you can't tell here on the blog, but there were appropriate margins in the email.

Project: halving the deck

nospam@example.com (ben) — Sat, 09 May 2009 01:37:49 -0400

Fact: We have a deck. Opinion: It's a good deck.

Fact: We have a back yard. Opinion: It's not so good.

Opinions, presented as facts in a pro/con list:

Con: The deck is too big.
Con: We don't use most of the deck.
Pro: The deck railing blocks our view of our not so good back yard. (this one actually is a fact)
Con: The deck railing blocks our view of our myriad bird feeders. (this one, too)
Con: The deck feels like it is blocking us off from our backyard.

Computer generated result: reduce size of deck by 50% and remove back railing. This will make the deck flow into the back yard. This will make the back yard more inviting to humans. This will provide enough wood to build another, free-standing, non-close-in-ing deck just over there.This will provide plenty of room for sitting on deck and watching squirrels eat bird food. It will also continue to provide a location for the grill. It will also more or less approximate heaven on earth.

Factual Photos:

The deck from that one corner. Frame to hold upside-down tomatoes is lying in the foreground.

On the deck looking 'over there'

Unknown to the computer, we have already begun demolition of the deck. Since this picture was taken, it has rained almost continually, so no further work has been completed. Fact: the thing under the pretty blue tarp is my brother-in-law's massive roto-tiller.

furiousBlog

leaving early today

Project: halving the deck